where that road began. it began here with the first footprints on the beaches of normandy. >> more than 150,000 souls set off towards this tiny sliver of sand upon which hung the fate of a war. but rather the course of human history. >> today we remember those who fell and we honor all who thought, right here in normandy. >> watched c-span's live special coverage of the anniversary of d-day, thursday, june 6, featuring a speech from president biden. >> next, former white house chief of staff share stories on the most important and toughest

aspects of the job and their memories of working with the president, hosted by the university of chicago institute of politics. this is about one hour 40 minutes. >> it was interesting. i was looking through the biography of james baker, the chief of staff. peter baker -- they say he kind of rejected this high-minded concept like loyalty as being the most important aspect of being a chief of staff. he was asked to describe the most important skill that a white house chief of staff needs and he said that skill was a detective. my job to keep the president from getting into trouble and when he gets into trouble, to get him out of it. i wanted to open with that notion, given the role he played

, and i wanted to go down the line to remind everybody which president you worked for, if you agree with that and if that is not the main characteristic that you thought you brought to the job, but was essential thing that got you chosen for the role or that was central to you executing it the president? >> you want me to start right off? [laughter] i am very blessed. i worked for three presidents at the white house. president reagan, president h w bush and president george w. bush. if you want to be the chief of staff, do not apply for the job. i do not know anyone who applied for the job that kept the job. in the present day, you can go to monster.com or indeed. the responsibility is to acknowledge the responsibility given.

when i was asked to be the president's chief of staff, i thought he was asking me to run his transition into government. he made it clear he was talking about a big one. the definition of the word big until after the election, and the hanging chad falling to the ground. i shared the campaign. seriously, it was the morning after the election when he asked me to be his chief of staff. i said, we have a lot to talk about. first of all, if i become your chief of staff, i will be a staffer, in charge of the staff. i cannot be your friend. you are my friend, but i do not want to let you down, but i cannot be a friend. you cannot be afraid to combat

me with all these things because you do not want to hurt your friend. you have permission to hurt me. if i do not have your cadence of life and my cadence the same way with yours, we will be compatible. i am an early morning person. he is an early morning person. his cadence of what time do you like to go to bed, do you exercise? what is your cadence like? i want to know yours so that i can adjust and i will not -- you have to allow me to say truth to power. i'm not going to be afraid to say truth to power and you should not be afraid to challenge me. i said, you have to have the courage to fire me, when you want me to be fired. and i would respect it. finally, i said, by wife is my

partner in everything that i do. if my life cannot be my partner as i am being your chief of staff, it will not work. that does not mean that she should work at the white house, but if she is not in my life, i will not have anyone helping to carry the burden. i will not share the secrets with her, but i definitely want to share the burden. he said, i like kathy. i said, no, you do not count. he said, let's go talk to her, so he went into the kitchen and talked to laura bush. i saw jim baker as chief of staff. i do not think that was jim baker's best time. i do not think it was the best model for chief of staff. he became chief of staff alone, i thought he was the very best chief of staff. it is also, what is the authority that the president gives you to build a staff and

build camaraderie in the white house? finally i will quote from a professor who wrote books on the white house organization. he said the chief of staff -- the first, make sure that the president is able to make brutal, tough decisions anywhere, anytime of day. you have to pay attention to his state of mind, his emotional health, his virtual health, his physical health or his clear thinking. so, that is number one. you never talk about it as a job for chief of staff. you want to be -- his luggage does not get lost. air force one shows up. the car gets there on time. the pencil is on the desk and the phone works. you worry about the country and not the little things.

the second part of the job is what you all think about, policy formulation. usually that is not giving advice on policy. it is disciplining the people who are giving advice on policy not to bully other people out of the process and to make sure that the president does not get monolithic counsel. if the president makes a decision and nobody knows about it, the white house does not get to implement any kind of decision. it is implemented by other people in government. you have to communicate what the president's decisions are anyway that they will be respected. so, that is what i learned by watching the chief of staff and these gentlemen.

>> we set the table pretty well and i think we will unpack as we go along about speaking truth to power. this question is about your secret power. we had some coffee. what was your secret power? >> there are no secrets anymore in washington. after all those conditions -- [laughter] right after a disastrous -- >> disastrous? i thought it was pretty good. >> i'm talking about america. >> i'm in the middle of this. [laughter] >> i think the comment about -- i forget the phrase.

but it is because nothing comes into the oval office that is good, basically. it has to be decided by the president. it is generally a bad situation. even though the job has been around for a while, it really is about the president's style and how you react to that. you have to have a sense of that. so, they were different. the bottom line is you have to be honest, direct, and also china -- i think my colleagues

would say the same. speak truth to power. i used to love how powerful people would come into the oval office -- they would say, but a great job. crazy. but basically same to the president, here is what i wanted to tell you. the number one quality is you have to be honest with president. >> there are certain kinds of honesty. what do you think? you are in a special situation. that is a different kind of relationship, going into it. was that your greatest asset or do you think it was something else? >> first of all, let me say that

i am delighted and i feel like it is a privilege to be. that is number one. number two, i think that the way i view a and trust is a coin of the realm. to be chief of staff, you have to have a measure of trust and respect, mutual respect with the president, in order to do your job effectively. i had known the president from childhood. we were lifelong friends, but i never worked with or forehand when he was governor of our state. i had been a businessman. i helped him establish the democratic leadership council, the new democrat movement. great to be in your hometown by the way.

they were all kinds of symbiotic. it was a new experience. i was chairman of the chief executive. my wonderful wife of 50 plus years. we had one done in georgetown. i had no anticipation of how to serve. the president asked me the night after the election to consider serving as chief of staff i remember the howard baker story. the venerable senator from illinois had been the minority leader, making sure. but he came in and asked to see reagan during a difficult period. he said, there is no way i'm going to take that job. i'm not going to do that.

he gets in with president reagan and as, howard, i'm in trouble. i need you and the country needs you. howard that, i am happy to serve. governor of your home state, compatible in philosophy, ask you to serve him and the country. and the answer after reflection and discussion is yes, sir, it will be in honor to do so. >> you talked about having to put the friendship piece away. were you able to do that, or do you think you were always advising him as a childhood friend? >> we always had that understanding. we had already developed a different relationship. we maintained a friendship, but a different type of relationship that was separate from that.

i asked him this. i said, i have been actively involved in politics, and so forth, simpatico from a political standpoint. i need someone i can trust, who is compatible and will keep me in reality check and tell me the truth when you are doing things right. that is the kind of relationship that we had. i must say, again, i never worked for governor clinton. he took criticism well. i always offered him in private -- he knew there would not be a leak and he would not see it in the washington post, but he understood that we had this relationship that worked. >> we are going to talk some more about when you had to say the tough things.

we kind of talked about three completely different presidents over the generations, but it sounds basically the same. he worked for a president who was a little bit more different in style in terms of how the white house man. do you concur about what was important for you, how you got the job and how you were able to run a? -- run it? >> there is a lot of overlap but there is a lot that is very different. i actually worked for donald trump before. i was a budget director. i think there were six or eight of us that became chief of staff after that position. i was the only person that took the job. john kelly had worked for him.

physically remove. mark meadows came out, but i worked with trump for years. he said, if you want the job, do not ask for it. i went in on a friday night. that job had just stopped, and i wanted more to do. i had been working two full-time jobs for a year. i walked into asked to be the special envoy to northern ireland, a job i always wanted. trump goes, great idea, let's teach you first. [laughter] he wanted somebody to fix things. he knew the place was busted. he knew it was a bad environment with john kelly having been there, the former chief did not get along. he thought what i had done at omb was sort of, in his mind, a

turnaround. that's what he wanted. come in and fix things. which is why it was always an acting position even though i was there 15 months and longer -- and on the job longer than the other three guys. it was always there for a purpose, to turn the place around. we talked about the cadence of life. i didn't expect to be offered the chief's job. my wife was waiting for me in my office to go to dinner, and i was like, how am i going to explain this? i said, bus, i can't do what you do. you only sleep four hours a night. i tell you what, i will work from 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., and i will have a team come in at noon that works until 2:00. that way, you have coverage. he said, got it. he always respected that. he only called me one time after hours, and i still thinking, he lost track of time. he called at 11:00. he respected the boundaries.

but it was a different kind of relationship. i talked to you before i took the gig, and i talked to josh bolton. i can't remember how i found you. it was robert o'brien. i read the book. i had read the book and ran home and read the book, about how to be a good chief of staff, like a manual. i'm sitting there, going, ok. you said it a little bit but josh set it a lot. there is no hard type, there is no one perfect chief of staff. it has to be different depending upon the president. and often, depending upon, it can change from president to president. you can be first term, second term, going into reelection, i would've reelection. a good chief of staff can always be different. that is the one take away. that fits. you have the four then diagrams, there are things that fit together. but there are things that will be unique to trump or obama or bush or clinton. jennifer: i think i read a

story, a completely different way of doing things. very different styles. it is not necessarily the personal style of whether you are controlling or more inclusive in decision-making. it sounds like it is more about your personal relationship with the president. you lay it out, which of those are the hardest in terms of the things you laid out as chief of staff? what is the most difficult? >> the president shall always attract the best and brightest to work at the white house. even if it is not true, everybody should believe it. jennifer: that was challenging, i guess? >> it's challenging because if you are one of the best and the brightest, you also have a very large ego. part of the chief of staff's job is to make sure ego does not get in the way of good counsel to the president. i would say, the toughest part of the job was managing the personalities of these very

competent people that the president hired, so that they were not the president. jennifer: when you say -- when you say that, who comes to mind? [laughter] mr. card: dick cheney. >> john bolton. mr. card: yeah, john bolton. condoleezza rice. all very competent people. they are confident and competent. jennifer: do you have a memory of having to check someone? mr. card: many times. >> you should have dealt with the cold and broke. [laughter] mr. card: the challenge though, is most people agree to advise the president and want their view to be the accepted view. if you have a dominant personality, you kind of crowd out some other meeker person in the room who is just as competent. i would police that, and maybe

during reading, i would say, sally really has more that she would like to say. what do you think, sally? or i would say, after the meeting to the president, you know, so-and-so dominated the discussion. i know that jim had a lot more to say. you might want to call jim and see what he had to say. those were sensitive things to do, because you don't want to eliminate good counsel. you want to invite it. but you want to make sure the president is making the decision rather than being bullied into the decision, or think that the decision is truly just the president's with no advice and counsel. he needs advice and counsel. today, we live in a my way or high -- or the highway society. i would like for us to live in a pluralistic society, where there are different views they should be heard and debated. jennifer: this that resonate with you? what would you say is the hardest part? does that sound similar?

mr. daley: yeah, managing egos of the people that are on the staff or in the cabinet who always feel this. -- feel dissed. because they have someone at the white house who thinks they know more than the cabinet person. the cabinet person was either governor or some sort of major player. and they always feel nobody listens to them. and you have a lot of talent and most of these cabinets. they have egos because they have been around for a long time. that is how they got the job. i feel that was the most difficult. i think andy is absolutely right. everybody in washington is a aaa star, or at least they think they are. the competition is enormous. you also know eight out of 10 people that you are dealing with in the staff in the cabin all think they can do a better job

then you can do. and maybe they can. but managing those egos is really tough. jennifer: i will try with you, anybody come to mind? any specific example you might have of that? maybe an anecdote of the policies where those egos got the most. mr. daley: president obama was really good at -- he would not let somebody dominate a conversation. he would go to church and hide in the back so nobody season. you cannot do that in meetings with him. he will call on everybody. staff people. the principles would say what they want, but president obama was such that he would then figure out, ok, who is staffing that principal, and he would ask them and put them on the spot for their opinion. which was awkward because you knew that person was thinking, i

need to differ with my boss who is sitting at the table, and tell the president the truth. but he was really good at that. jennifer: that sounds, short of exhausting. let me ask you, president clinton, he was known as a chatty file a. -- chatty fella. mr. mclarty: engaging, you mean engaging. [laughter] jennifer: did that dynamic and packed these gentlemen would describe? would you describe your challenges as completely different? mr. mclarty: it did, and i would. i think for me, coming out of the business side and the politics as well, with president clinton who was an engaging, big intellect, and curiosity, a lot of energy. let's get all of it done, in a hurry. no, mr. president, we need to prioritize here. we have to keep our eyes on the proverbial prize. if you look back in history, almost any president, and any

president is judged by piece and prosperity -- peace and prosperity. those are the hallmarks of a successful presidency, or unsuccessful presidency. that is the prize. in our case, as bill certainly remembers, president clinton had only got 43% of the vote. ross perot got 19% of the vote as a third-party candidate. and president bush 41 had the remainder of the vote. it was somewhat of a surprise election, at least until the last month, as you will remember. president bush was such a gentleman, such a great man, great president. bu economy, it was the economy, as james pointed out in the campaign. the real prize was, number one, the president had rattled the economy. we had to deliver on the economy, job creation, and all

that this was a young governor from arkansas who was not well known even after that campaign. it was essential he step in a surefooted manner as he met foreign leaders and dealt with foreign policy issues, i.e., peace and security and prosperity. and i remember -- and i will remember forever, and all of these chiefs have gone through a similar process, and bill made a great point about what sequence are you when you are chief of staff. is at the beginning of the term or end of the term or second term. mine was at the beginning of the clinton presidency. the night before the president takes the sacred oath of office, as andy knows full well having experienced 9/11 with president bush, you are briefed on the nuclear codes and the passing of the football. got is a somber moment.

-- that is a somber moment. in our case, general colin powell was head of the joint of chiefs. i assure you, general powell, when he stepped in a room, filled it up immediately. if in stature and intellect and presence -- both in stature and intellect and presence. the night before, general powell was giving the security briefing to the president, vice president, national security advisor and me as chief of staff. we discussed how many minutes you have to respond to a nuclear attack and the passing of the football. and i remember -- and i will remember as long as i live, despite loss of memory over time, looking into the president's eyes, it was like, this is the most sacred responsibility of any commander-in-chief. i always say, my job was to focus the president and the white house and the cabinet, keep our eyes on the prize. peace and prosperity. that was our goal.

i think, truly, as a baby boomer, and a business person, i did not think we could balance the budget. i talked to the president about it. the omb director, you understand it very well. but as we move in to the first term, the economy started to improve, we had low-inflation but real growth, increase in productivity. all of a sudden, you begin to whittle away at that deficit. that, to me, were our goals. jennifer: i don't know if you are going to share that view of managing people's opinions. if so, i'm curious about that. at least the image of president trump in the media was that he was a person who was very captive to the last person he spoke to. if you can talk to that about your approach. or was it something that was completely different that you found most challenging? mr. mulvaney: i will talk about the egos first, you always feel

with that in the white house. you have these huge egos. i will give a specific example, i will name names. john bolton was a very bright man. no question. one of the smartest men i've ever met. was never really able to convince him he was not the president. [laughter] i will give you a specific example. we were in osaka, japan, and for a variety of reasons, we ended up going at the last minute to the dmz. actually pulled that off. john was against that decision. on 16 hours notice. john was against that decision. and described why he thought this was a bad decision. john left. john went to mongolia incident. -- instead. you can't do that. that is when you knew it was time for john to go. if you remember his team, there

is only room for one ego in that room and it is the president's. it has to be enough for you to recognize you are in the oval office, having your piece. you are saying your argument on something. if the president agrees with you, yay for you. if the president doesn't agree with you, you are not the president. managing that was real. i remember specifically we had other folks, john was one. who jumped out at me my biggest challenge was to keep everybody from killing themselves, killing each other. it was a really tough place to work. john kelly had not been to work the last two or three months of the job. everybody was out for him or herself in the west wing. it was one of the things i was sent out to change. i spent most of my day, i would meet the president in the morning, meet the president in the afternoon, i spent most of my day walking around the west

wing trying to build a team. they were not a team at that time. once we did that, i felt like we were in a good place until the first impeachment. . for a while there, it did work. it was a challenge because of where i was in the cycle. i was not at the very beginning and i wasn't going into the reelection. i got there right after the midterms, with a specific goal of fixing the place. that was the hardest thing to do. to try to change the culture from vipers to folks actually functioning as a team. and it worked. after that, the challenge became simple. how do you balance the crazies with the normal people? because trump liked all people. clinton was the same. i think obama was the exact opposite. trump loved to have big groups in the office. and he wanted to have a debate on a topic. i use to joke that we would sell tickets to the trade discussions. we would have people on this side, and trump would sit back,

as the arbitrator and judge and watch these people debate for an hour and a half. sometimes there would be 20 people in the oval office, yelling at each other. which was great. it's what he wanted. my challenge was to make sure there was balance in the room, so that for everybody who was a staunch protectionist, i had a free-trade or. if those people were relatively evenly matched intellectually in terms of ego, so that you had a good debate. and make sure the president had the best information in front of him from all sides so he could make the best decisions. jennifer: it is an interesting policy issue for you to illustrate that paired i had never had the impression that president trump was remotely moved by -- on that issue, opposite side of his own views on trade. did you feel he was absorbing and entertaining it? mr. mulvaney: all the time. we changed his mind on australian tariffs on steel. he did not eyes a result of a debate. when i mean debate, i mean that

i thought gary cohen was going to kill bob lighthizer. jennifer: can you describe the way you saw that occurring? what was happening in that moment? mr. mulvaney: cohen never grabbed him by the throat. [laughter] these are grown men and women. these are big egos and big intellects. in fact, one of the things that disappointed me about i left, wendy started the administration, the interior will circle, the senior advisor to the president included the former ceo of exxon mobil in the former president of goldman sachs. say what you want about their politics, those are real people. at the end, the inner circle included the guy who sells pillars at night on fox news. i work hard to prevent that from happening. then after i left, i think it happened. >> one quick ps, we talk about egos. you covered the congress.

you also have big egos in the senate and the house, huge stakeholders you can't get legislation through unless you have good rapport on the hill. i used to have a one dollar bet with the president when a senator would come in by himself. the two chairs in the oval office you see in the picture a million times with a fireplace behind it. the wager was, with the senators sit down in the chair before the president offered it or not? i won nine out of 10 debts. [laughter] jennifer: that is a good point. your job, we think of you as interfacing with the president. that is the several role. but you have to talk to stakeholders, members of congress, and congress is essential to any president's agenda. that is an interesting point i would like to look into more. >> part of my job is to keep the crazies out of the oval office.

but egos, you can't do that when there is a trade advisor. [laughter] congress, their egos are beyond -- all due respect. they really don't care about the president's future. it is all about them. i came up with a brilliant idea that we should announce a reorganization plan as a prototype to get a reorganization under government. you may not agree, but it really doesn't work real well. i worked -- came up with this great plan. had a prototype of all business commerce departments, put it into a plan. the democrats took away from president reagan the ability to reorganize by taking that power away from him, and you used to

be able to give congress a plan. here is the reorganization plan for the whole government. no amendments. we came up with this brilliant plan. so, the presses in the dining room, it was great. five minutes later, that ain't going anywhere. jennifer: majority leader at the time. mr. daley: democrat in the senate. they were in control. don't waste our time. don't even breathe that air. i'm like, how about we have a discussion about it? everybody knows this thing ain't working real well. and we have to streamline government. the chair calls me and says, what is this? i said, all we want is a hearing. just, no way. jennifer: and that is your own party. mr. daley: yeah.

but congress said, don't even bother. they would have just shot it down. jennifer: we talked about -- you have all mentioned you have to be a truth teller, tell the president something difficult, a difficult message or that they messed up, for what they don't want to hear. i would like to go down the line, with as much granular detail as you can possibly recall, what is an example of when you had -- i'm not talking about, we will get to the big ones. i'm talking about something where he is not going to want to hear this, or he really screwed that up and he has no idea and i will have to tell him. what is that like when you have to deliver something they don't want to hear? [laughter] mr. card: you have to tell them, you don't want to hear this, but i'm going to tell it to you.

you have to be able to explain why you are doing it. and it could be a thousand things. it could be policy, reacting to what is happening in congress, could be something reacting to what is going on in the united nations. you have to have the courage to say, ufos, unforeseen occurrences. unintended consequences. those are sometimes very difficult to bring into the office. because you should be feeling a little guilty, if there was an unintended consequence, because you should have had somebody on your team that expected that consequence. when it doesn't happen, does that mean heads will roll? no, it means people will be disappointed. you have to do work, go on capitol hill, solve a problem. i can't tell you how many meals of crow i-8 over the years. jennifer: on the hill. mr. card: in the oval office.

[laughter] when you acknowledge he did not do the job as well as you thought, we did and that about this happening and it happened. jennifer: do you have any examples there? i'm curious, and i would ask you all of this. president obama, did he get more upset you pointing out something he had done wrong, or bringing garden-variety bad news? mr. daley: he was -- his public image was very cool. he did not fluctuate. he was always very steady. and i think in addition to the things andy said, oftentimes, you have to come and tell something about a person in the government, in the cabinet, and the administration has done something bad, and you have to take some action on them. that is awkward. especially if they are good friends of the president. but he was very steady all the time.

jennifer: you have no memory of him blowing his top? mr. daley: i don't know president trump, but from what i read, he sometimes has blown his top. [laughter] no. nothing like president clinton. if you were in the room with president clinton, it was quite a scene. you want to get to the door, quickly. jennifer: when did you want to run for the door? mr. mclarty: not too often, because i knew him well. mr. daley: only when it was open. [laughter] mr. mclarty: exactly. but again, i had not worked with him when he was governor. it was a different type of relationship. in my case, we talk about the familiarity and the trust and respect. the president clinton, was obviously was and is a very smart, intuitive person. he could kind of immediately read me when i came into the room in the oval office, ok, go

ahead, give me the bad news. he could just see, he knew me well enough and probably what i was there, maybe not the subject, but probably the town or substance of the news. secondly, he would like to summon a thunderstorm. he would have a little temper moment there. then it would calm back down a little later. again, because of the relationship, and he knew i was trying to get things done in the right way, doing my best. not always succeeding. but he would have that, and people would leave and he would say, are you finished? he would accept that. he'd say, yes i am. that is kind of the way i handled it. the moment i remember, not necessarily real bad news, but president clinton coming out of the campaign where he would linger with each and every voter to the last dog died as he put it.

that was a real attribute in the campaign. not so much andy and the oval office with running on time. president clinton did not run on time. and i just got so frustrated with that. finally one day, i went in there, and after he was doing his mail. i said, mr. president, it was a brilliant speech this morning, so well organized. just so tight. i just don't see how your mind can work in that order of manner and be so disorganized personally. i just don't understand. he looked over his half glasses, and i say, i see i have made you mad. and he said no, no, you just hurt my feelings. [laughter] that was the point i got -- i tried to make. . he did get better over the years. he did get better over eight years. and needed to. jennifer: did you ever see president trump lose his temper? mr. mulvaney: no. i commented a couple times, i read all these stories about

throwing food and i am -- i was around him a lot. that was not the president i saw. i never saw that. i can count on one hand the number of times i went in, closed the door, said mr. president, we have a problem. we can't do this. because i knew he would not react positively to that. if you told the president, you can't do this, he would push back and say, yes, we can. i understand his personality. i had to do it a couple times because you don't have a choice. . because i did it so infrequently, i would close the door, and he knew it was serious. there were several dozen times where we knew we had to convince him not to do something. and i knew how to do that. which is, ok, we have to get this person to say, this is a bad idea. this person, you have to be a friend of his, somebody on tv, and three members of congress.

ok? i can't tell you the number of times i called sean hannity and said, look, this is what we are thinking about doing. you can say that on the show tonight, then that will help. [laughter] you have to learn how to talk to people in the language they understand. one of the beauties -- one of the keys of success at everything is getting people to think that everything is their own idea. that is what we did, data -- that is what you had to do. you can't walk in and say, you can't do this. he would say, are you the president? a couple times, you don't have a choice. but over the course of a day or two, if our policy, if you think it is a mistake, we treated like the ocean crashing on the shore. if the waves hit this -- hit the same tone a couple times, then it is his idea and now we have changed, we are often the right direction. by the way, that is good advice in life generally. i do that with my wife.

kids, tell mom we can't do that. that's a great idea. jennifer: it is kind of a consensusbuilding of sorts. mr. mulvaney: we just have to understand how people communicate and how they react. presidents have egos. you don't run for president if you don't have a big ego. if you try to go head-to-head with that, first of all, you will end up out of a job. more importantly, you won't get the right decisions. jennifer: we are -- we are going to go to a q&a. i think you are showing me this photo of you delivering the news to president bush that the united states had been attacked, the world trade center have been hit by an airplane while he was having an event in the school, elementary school. it's an iconic image for a reason, because it's considered

one of the worst moments in modern history. and obviously you are in it and you are in that moment. was that the worst day of your life in the job? and if not, what was? guest: do you remember when george hw bush on the japanese prime minister? [laughter] jennifer: jennifer: that was not a good day. that was a bad day. guest: i was chief of staff on that trip too. [laughter] jennifer: that was a birthday. guest: the best date -- flip it, ok -- the best day was, i will stick with the negative. when we were observing the osama bin laden great. and when the helicopter began to go twirl and had to abort bob . bob gates, at one of the first meetings, had said, -- he was secretary of defense -- whatever the military says, we shouldn't do this raid in the open public.

i remembered the tehran rescue. and murphy's law, if it can go wrong, will go wrong. and i saw that helicopter came , i thought, oh, shoot. here goes. and then it turned out to be an enormous success for the world. guest: the worst day, i think, was oklahoma city bombing in the white house. that's when i felt the fabric of our nation had changed and it just so out of the complete unimaginable, happening. the president really engaged on that. and the republican governor from oklahoma frank keating really helped heal the state, the city of oklahoma city, the state of oklahoma, and the nation. it was such a sobering shakeup in the moment when you are just shook. and it turned out to be a good moment for the country. i think the best day was when he

saw the economy getting better and you had a chance to really make substantial progress on the national deficit, which eventually led to a balanced budget on a bipartisan basis. and, jennifer, i think the best day likely for all of us, is when you meet someone usually on the campaign trail or an event, where you are working an particular policy and you have helped change someone's life , like welfare to work. and they tell you their story about a single mother and impact it has had. that is why you get into public service. jennifer: can you tell us about your best day? you have the last word. >> i don't remember, we were blessed. we didn't have any of those great tragedies. we had too many shootings and so forth. but nothing stands out absolutely like 9/11 or the oklahoma city bombing. i remember particularly great days. as i sit up here, i do remember that sinking feeling one time that things are getting to go really badly very quickly. but it turned out fine. so i can talk about it.

when we went to the dmz, we only had about two minutes to brief the president. if you watch the video, he was supposed to go to the border, shake hands with kim jong-un, step over the border, shake hands and walk back into south korea. he walked the wrong way. i am sitting in the glass doors watching the back of the president walking to north korea. [laughter] i turned to the head of the secret service and i say, what do we do now? he says, i forgot to tell you, but the deal we cut with the north koreans was we get the president, the interpreter, the photographer and one secret service agent. if we send anybody else, we are invading north korea. [laughter] he walked over and starts ghost circulating at the north korean building. he comes back and they walk into the south korean building and have a meeting. two hours later we talked and i asked him, what was that all about? and he goes, did you see that building?

did you see that building? that was the ugliest building. i said, kim, you've got to look at this. look at this building. you guys have coasts, you could be doing resorts, golf courses, casinos, but not with a building like that. [laughter] now look at that building. i thought, that is a fabulous building. let's go have a meeting. [laughter] and he walked back and they had a meeting. jennifer: glad that wasn't almost your birthday. so we have a mic over here. again, students, please identify yourself, state your name your year and make sure that your question ends in a question mark. [laughter] >> thank you. hi. i am in the business school, graduating this june. thank you all for being here. so, given all the talented folks, and maybe folks with big egos that you worked with, i am curious what you think was the best american leader of the post 1960 who never even ran for

president but should have and why do you think they should? guest: wow. that is a great question. guest: that is a good question. guest: it really is. jennifer: anyone want to take that? guest: boy, you may have stopped --stumped us here! [laughter] jennifer: why don't we go to the next question? put a pin in that and if it occurs to anybody, we will circle back. go ahead. > i am a graduate student in sociology. you talked about managing ego. that is on the confidence side. what about the other side, insecurity? i read a memo by henry kissinger, he did a lot managing insecurity, bob nixon. and i wonder if the chief of staff is it not better positioned to manage insecurity, whether just the division of

labor by different staffers, or you are the confidant of the president. guest: i think you have to convey a positive attitude and be very supportive of the president, because it is very easy in this job to get down and be down a lot. even though it is an enormous honor and challenge. but, again, there is so much bad that comes into this place because, if it is good and easy to solve, somebody else is going to solve it and take credit for it. so you have to make sure that, and i think as mick said, moving with the staff, especially young people, they read the press, they see the press, they get down. that mood can be very infectious in the white house. the negativity. so we have got to try to boost everybody up and be positive . with the president and one on one, it can be different.

guest: all of us have had a phenomenal privilege to agree to the president when they come to work. i used to greet the president optimistically. say it's a great day. even if it was a really lousy day. why? because you don't want a pessimist to be president. you don't have a leader that says, follow me, and things will get worse. and you don't want a leader who tells those who are working in government that their job is not going well. you want to lift them up. so i think it's an important job for the chief of staff to be motivating, positive action, rather than inviting people to slip into despair. jennifer: thank you. next question. ? plus, there is no -- there is no shortage of people trying to beat the president up. >> in the west wing, the series that was popular for many years, it did capture the white house pretty well, except they had script.

none of us had a script. we had to do it in real time. but i certainly noticed coming , from business, you have real highs where you have good moments, and then you have real challenges and and lows and you have to try to even those out. guest: that is the job, isn't it? i used to tell people it's like any other job where you have really good days and really bad days. the difference is the good days are that much higher than the ordinary good day, and the bad days. jennifer: makes sense. >> thank you for coming. my name is nora and i am third year in the college. i am curious, have you ever felt a strong conflict where you felt serving the president as a person differed from serving the interest of american people? and if so, how do you navigate that? guest: great question. guest: i get asked it a lot of time because of the reputation trum has. he never asked anything that i consider to be a moral, certainly never anything to be legal. i never face those challenges. i talked to the students here

putting a plug-in on my seminar, 3:30 on mondays. [laughter] he never put us in a position like that. jennifer: but you did resign on january 6. guest: guest: january 6 was different. i was not chief of staff at the time. but that is a longer discussion for another day. keep in mind, he was our boss, right, whether or not you think there was something illegal and criminal on january 6, whether or not you think it is something impeachable, that is not the place to have a debate. he failed me as my boss on that particular day. he did not meet my expectations as the man who was in charge of my organization. and if that is the case, you can't fix it, you can't make it better, you have a choice. leave and people i it's a different thing. it's different than saying let's go do this, it's a moral thing. never saw any of that. i don't know if you guys did. i doubt that you did. guest: i think all three

questions have been excellent so far. i think it is one thing if you disagree on the policy and news the discussion, but i think -- it all sounds self-righteous, i think any of us, frankly, certainly speaking of myself, if you felt that way, you would be compelled to resign. i think president clinton knew that about me. guest: i never even came close to thinking that. jennifer: do you want to address the question? guest: let me go back to that first question. guest: i struggled with that one. guest: i was thinking, who is somebody in my lifetime that didn't become president, that could have no doubt in my mind changed the course of history. it was bobby kennedy. i think of all the people that -- obviously he ran and was assassinated -- but i think that was the most impactful one,

changing history. in my lifetime who didn't get a chance to do. but would have done it very well. guest: colin powell. somebody i had great respect for. he had the vision from inside the government and had been on the receiving end of presidential decisions and then was secretary of state. he had great comments around the world. guest: we think exactly alike. >> hi. i first year in the college. am a and i'm curious like how religion impacted your relationship with the president? and from your inside perspective, how did religion actually influence the president's day today decision-making? guest: i would be glad to answer that. full disclosure, my wife is a methodist minister. i come from strong faith. i can't imagine doing the job we

did or that the president does, without practicing a faith. the burdens are so great and the decisions have such great consequences that i do think that you want the comfort of having solicited counsel beyond that which would come from a person in the room. so the president i work for -- president reagan, george h. w. bush and george w. bush, all practiced their faith. george w. bush was probably the most disciplined at doing it. there is a document we would all see every day called the president's daily brief, the top -secret. everybody in washington wants to see it. it is a need to see, not a want to see. and we had the need to see it, the president had the need to see it. that anything on the president's desk, i would see it before it went on the president's desk. i would read the document and then i would read it to the

president when he came to work. i was very impressed. the document was there. the president would come in, sit down in the chair behind the resolute desk, opened a devotional and read from it, take out another devotional and read from it. take out the bible, read something from it and closed the drawer. i believe he prayed, and then he would pick up the pdf and read it. so i think faith plays a big role in making those decisions. guest: trump is probably one of the least religious people i ever met in my entire life. he was fascinated by faith and somehow managed to surround himself with a with a west wing of mostly devout daily communicative roman catholics, including myself. there was six or eight of them. and he was fascinated by people of faith and want to talk about faith all the time.

he used to invite me and larry kudlow, who is a jewish convert, to catholicism, come in sit in the room. and then bill barr and patsy maloney, again, folks who would go to daily mass. he would talk to us about why we disagree on the death penalty. how is it that some roman catholics like myself, larry, are against the death penalty and some go to church just as much like bill and and pat are for the death penalty. and he was fascinated by it. he also allowed us, for the first time in history, to have catholic mass on the campus, for the first time and for the only time in history. and once we started doing that, they start having services at and muslim services on the campus for the first time ever. from the least religious president in history, ever. i know people criticize him for not knowing that. but he was still -- he was encouraging of people of faith. guest: president obama was very private, as those of you know

him, about his religion. he was a strong believer in faith and it was, in my opinion, a big piece of his -- as he went through life and decision-making. but he was not outputting it out on his sleeve in any way, shape, or form. guest: president clinton and at that time suck first lady wife and i were very well aware that she had been active in the first methodist church in little rock. the president had been a very active member of the baptist church choir in little rock. we were familiar with their faith. they did a nice job. we would have, at least four times a year, usually at the beginning of each season, it is

very broad gathering. not a presidential prayer breakfast, but a gathering of all faiths. it had a wonderful feel. that was the way to send the right message in the right way, i thought, to the staff in the white house and put things in the perspective that was needed. jennifer: we will try to get to a few more. go ahead i am a first-year student in the college. mr. mulvaney, you talked about resigning on january 6. in the interview after, you sent donald trump had not been the same as he had been in months prior. i am curious how you think, he changed into all of you, i am curious how you think your presidents changed. guest: i think you got tired of people telling him what he didn't want to hear. he started to replace people who are honest with him with people who, if he had an idea, it was on this, yes, mr. president. it's a good idea.

let's have a rally on february 6. it's the best idea ever. presidents are ultimately responsible for their staffers. he was getting really bad advice. keep in mind, the president is probably the single most isolated and insulated person in the world from it may be the pope -- i'm not sure, ok. but you relies so heavily on your staff because you are no longer a normal human being and you don't interact with the real world. you have to have a staff that will be open and conduit with you to the outside world and if they fail in that role, you are at the risk of making tremendously poor decisions. whether it was trump's fault, staff fault, obviously his fault because he's responsible at the end of the day for everything. but i do blame the staff for a lot of the breakdowns in the last days of the trump administration. guest: i would say obviously, people who get to the presidency have long relationships with lots of people and they call on people for advice. but -- and i remember with

president clinton when i was in the cabinet with him, he was constantly engaging people outside of the system that he had a history with, for their advice. guest: great point. guest: and president obama did the same. but those people who suddenly, as opposed to us who dealt with the president, every day they get a call from the president to ask their opinion on something, as i mentioned earlier, it's very hard to get people to really be honest with the president. because, you know, the white house put the call through , everybody goes into the meltdown, oh, you are talking to the president. not to bill clinton who you do for 30 years. except for a guy like matt in their role. so the judgment they get from friends and people they have engaged with over the years is not as good, in my opinion, because they don't give the

honest opinion. that they may have given when the person was the governor or the congressman. guest: i am reminded of a time we were on the elevator and stuart took us up to the wrong floor. we got off and it was a huge room and the first lady was having a reception there. this man ran over to the president. of course, everybody kind of gravitated that way. mr. president, sorry, sorry, sorry. there is a lot of people here. and president clinton didn't even blink. he said, i know, i used to be one. [laughter] it is a problem, a bubble of isolation. in terms of pressure, in the six and a half years i was in the white house, i think most presidents come to the office with experience, for sure, great talent, great drive. but they all, i think, have to learn and change on the job. they all have to grow if they're going to be a successful president. they are human beings. we all do that. you do it as students. you grow. i watched that with president

clinton and he had that capacity. it certainly helped. >> hello. i am a freshman in the college. my question is about impeachment. two of you were chiefs of staff to presidents during their impeachment. i am curious about what kind of day-to-day operations were like during those times and how they differed from other parts of the presidency. guest: i will refer to mick mulvaney because he was in the white house during the impeachment. guest: it broke the west wing. one of my fears is that it is now going to be used as a tool going forward on a regular basis, because the opposition party has figured out that if you want to frustrate the president's agenda, you can take up a lot of time and a lot of energy by doing an impeachment. and it certainly broke us. i to this day believe that our response to covid was negatively impacted by the fact that we were completely worn out and beaten up by the impeachment.

two states, coincided almost perfectly. we had the first press conference on covid the same day that the final vote on the senate impeachment took place, in fact, nobody came to the presser on covid because they were all covering the impeachment. and my fear is that now my party will do it to them. they will do it to us. it will become an ordinary tool. it was extraordinarily stressful. i remember during the mueller report. i had had an idea of something i wanted to do over the cfpb that was consistent with the president's's agenda and i went to that then white house - counsel. i said, look, i don't think i can do this on my own, but if you guys back me, i think we can do this. i think it's entirely in line with president wants me to do over there. he looks up to me and goes, i am up to here with mueller. i don't have time for this crap. so we didn't do it. it is a tremendous energy sink. i mean, it will just drain a

white house and can rip it apart. and i think that happened to us. i don't know what it was like in the clinton white house, but my guess is that it was a very stressful, intense type -- even when you know what the result is going to be. we knew what the result was going to be. there was no way that the senate was going to kick donald trump out of office. but even with that knowledge, it was still very, very difficult. jennifer: you can ask a question in 30 seconds. i can get these guys to answer in about as much as you have. [laughter] >> thank you very much. my question is how does the role change during reelection season , if at all. guest: i was not there, i left before the re-election. but, especially these days, it dominates the whole last year. and nothing, and i think you will see it this year with president biden, it is all-consuming. when the president travels, and

they are usually out on average three or four days a week now, in those eight states that matter, it dominates everything. >> you were there -- guest: i think the biggest change is not around the elections. it's the reality that there is social media now that is ubiquitous, instantaneous, and people get stuck on stupid really fast. and so that is the biggest change in terms of the context of the white house being able to function. because so many people now use adjectives and adverbs more than the use of nouns and verbs. [laughter] guest: i was there, i left in march of 2020. we had just started the reelect campaign. we had data in january 2020 when we believed that the democratic nominee was going to be bernie sanders and that we were going to win 40 states, including new jersey. it just goes to show you how quickly things can change.

jennifer: well, this has been really great. i appreciate the time from all of you gentlemen. it was interesting and really fun. i thank all of you for coming out in a beautiful night in chicago and i hope to see you soon again at the next event. [cheers and applause] jennifer: that was wonderful. thank you, sir. announcer: earlier today president biden observed memorial day at arlington national cemetery with a wreath-laying ceremony and remarks. you can watch the full event tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span. it's also available on c-span now, our free mobile video at, or online at c-span.org. announcer: members of congre are posting their thoughts. here are a couple of their coents. the day isn't about cookouts or appliance sales -- it's about recognizing and honoring the sacrifices of more than a million americans who have died in military service since the civil war

from senator patty murray also of washington state -- as a daughter o a world war ii ten taking time to reflect, remember and honor our fallen servicemembers is deeply personal for me. t all take a moment to remember those who ge e ultimate sacrifice and their families. on tuesday, former national secuty council official fiona hill and others scuss the effectiveness of u.s. sanions imposed on russia from the brookings institution. watch live at 10:30 a.m. on c-span, c-span now, or online at c-span.org. >> november foremost is a constitutional formality. the primary is where the look at their time and voting records because that is when it makes the difference. so the district has gone from here to hear from it the way people receive their news has gone from factual, better news to where everybody has their own truth and they don't tune in for

information, they too need for affirmation. money in politics has moved from the party which was centered on american politics for 200 years, out to the superpacs, 501(c) four's, enforcement mechanisms in primaries and there is no cavalry for members who deviate from the party line. i think those factors together have made it very difficult for members to step across the lines and get outside your comfort zone. >> there are two words that don't show up in any founding documents and he repeated the word democracy and the word compromise. of never seen anyone run and from which to be a hell of a compromiser. it's just a way to have a short career in politics. [laughter] what the founders had in mind was exactly that, democracy. it requires compromise. we have two chambers in the legislative branch not because we wanted a spirit, in essence, they created an architecture that made us think twice along the way.

but that notion of democracy is totally dependent upon compromise. you lose the ability to compromise, you don't have a democracy. you can't have a winner-take-all system. announcer: a group of former lawmakers recently got her to discuss congressional gridlock and offer their thoughts on the causes and possible solutions to finding common ground. you can watch the full event on tuesday beginning at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span now, our free mobile app, or online at c-span.org. ♪ , up next. a hearing on russia using u.s.-made semiconductors and its invasion on ukraine. the technology has been found in equipment and systems used by the russian military including drones, missiles, armored vehicles and communications systems. from the subcommittee on investigations, this is about 90 minutes.